Picked up the following from this handy link: http://www.forzamotorsport.net/en-us/news/FH3_GoneGold

Perhaps I was a bit naive to think that the PC versions of XBO games would scale more appropriately to the platform, but seeing an i7 **and** a 970 as the recommended specs is a bit worrisome as I'm currently running an i5-4460 and a 970 in my PC. I think I'll be fine but would hate to purchase the game and find out that isn't the case.

My hope was that this whole PC/XBO crossover thing would make it possible (if not downright easy) for me to play Microsoft exclusives without owning a third console. It was actually encouraging to see Microsoft take a smart approach to making their games available to people with a decent PC. Curious what you guys think, because after seeing these recommended specs I've become a bit more skeptical of their approach.

@iammattz: Try out Forza 6: Apex. It's free on the Windows Store and has the exact same recommend specs.

@monkehhh:Thanks. I guess I just saw i7 and immediately thought I needed a CPU upgrade in order to play this thing. Is it that the i7 they list is on the lower-end of the i7 cpus?

So far the recommended specs of Microsoft games on Windows 10 have been to run them at 1080p/60 on high. Even though FM6 also runs at 1080p/60 on Xbox One, Apex looks noticeably better. I suspect the same will hold true for FH3.

The processor they list is a few generations old, so it's more important to look at the clock speed.

The amount of RAM is a must though. Running Apex on 8GB vs 16GB without changing anything else for me (i5 6600k, 980) completely alleviated the framerate drops I was experiencing.

The 970 is two years old now, having that as a recommended GPU for a new game isn't really that surprising.

I felt the same way looking at it but I bet it has to scale down pretty well given the hardware it is coming from.

Apex has really nice auto adjust settings that change on the fly. You have to dig around to max things out/uncap performance iirc.

Hopefully Horizon has a bit more life to it, as Apex is so sterile and flat.

Does the App Store let you purchase games that don't meet minimum spec or does it stay locked out? I've thankfully had little interaction with it.

Ive played Apex with a i5 3570k and a 4gb 960, looks and feels great, don't worry about your current specs. More than adequate.

Intel Core i7-3820 Processor had a launch Date of Q1 2012. So, not terribly old, but over four years old. And, the Intel Core i7-3820 was pretty killer in it day...nothing to sneeze at.

if the optimization is as bad as Apex then its a no no for me.

Forza 6 runs at 30 pretty consistently on low everything with a i5 3570k with a 660 ti so I imagine it'll be fine.

It's a gross simplification, but generally speaking the i5 and i7 models are equivalent, short of hyper-threading. Not something used in many games, so unless you're into production type stuff, not always very relevant.

I find it funny that the recommended VRAM is 4GB, but one of the recommended GPUs is the 970 which only has 3.5.

IIRC, the recommended spec. for Forza 6 Apex was for running the game at a locked 1080p60 on high (which looks better than the Xbox One version). The minimum spec. to run that game is far lower (i3 / GT 740), and I expect the same is true of Horizon 3 (AFAICT they haven't announced minimum specs. for FH3 yet).

Edit: Windows Store listing has the minimum spec. for Horizon 3. Your machine should be more than fine:

I have a 280X which is less powerful than a 970 but should still be more than enough. I mean the XBOX One GPU is not very powerful, it is basically a Radeon 260. It has 768 compute units while my 280X has 2048. The CPU in an XBOX one is also not very powerful since it is a laptop grade low power CPU at only 1.75ghz and my CPU is an Intel i5 overclocked to 4.1ghz. I think those recommended specs are a bit on the safe side, unless the PC version has a lot more demanding graphics options than XBOX has.

Personally I was really happy when I saw these specs. Recommended is for if you want to run the game on higher settings, so my 980 and i7 4690k @ 4.4GHz should make light work of running this at 1080p.

I actually just jumped in on Apex to test things out and man does that game run like a dream on my PC. Hoping FH3 will do the same!

Forza Apex runs at a solid 100+ fps at max at 1080p here under normal conditions (maybe it drops to like 80ish in rain + a lot of cars) on an i7 4790K + R9 Fury. So unless Horizon runs a lot worse, I would expect a solid 60+ fps at all times from those recommended specs at 1080p. Don't worry. Forza Apex has a lot of options to tweak and supports dynamic scaling as well so it can adjust things on the fly to keep the framerate up if you want. I expect the same with Horizon 3.

@gundogan: You should note that while games like Forza 6 run at 60fps on the Xbox One, the Horizon games have historically been 30fps. Rendering that open world hits the hardware pretty hard. I'm not arguing that you can't achieve 60fps with a decent PC, but the Horizon games are rather more technically demanding than their Motorsport cousins.

Ye, even with the WinStore games being limited by the framework (UWP still not being up there with previous win32 framework for 3D rendering - still have no idea if FH3 will ship with HDR on Windows because AFAIK the Anniversary update didn't enable HDR on the desktop compositor and UWP games can't take control of the GPU and directly output an HDR signal as they're limited to a borderless window inside the Windows compositor), F6: Apex runs pretty well.

I was running it ok with a GTX760 & i5-2500K (good enough for 1080p60 work, as you'd expect for a GPU with about as much grunt as you get from a PS4 running a game designed for an XB1) and can now move up to 4K if I want with a GTX1070. I have high hopes for Horizon 3 being a pretty good looking game and being rock solid with the framerate.

I actually turned off the dynamic settings stuff in Apex on the 1070 as locking them to max removed a slight stuttering issue when they were set to dynamic and so locked in the 60fps framerate. So that's something to note if you're at the top end of the requirements for this engine (assuming Horizon is using a tweaked FM codebase again) or seeing some random stutters: fixed setting may avoid that as it presumably stutters when swapping or profiling the settings to tweak them on the fly sometimes.

@isomeri: Yea that's true, but I think the recommended specs have enough headroom for the extra load of the open world. Otherwise you might have to not run the game at 8x AA and 16x AF for example. :p

Considering the shader and semi-transparent texture aliasing in the Forza games (and that only gets worse with the Horizon settings), going OtT with MSAA is really throwing GPU perf at only fixing bits of the issue (of note: all foliage and especially the shadows, even on Ultra you can that aliasing something fierce without super-sampling).

I've not seen any reason to run Apex with more than 4xMSAA and even that's only because I've got enough perf to throw away. Really hope the engine eventually gets a good temporal AA solution (now those are getting really good) because that gives better results for the same perf cost nowadays. Even the XB1 edition of the engine isn't doing straight MSAA today.

But you really should run 16xAF. I mean, in all games. no excuses. Give textures at an angle to the camera in the distance some proper detail from the source textures rather than making them a blurry mess. But specifically in driving games with tarmac and road markings then you have to use AF because otherwise it'll eat those textures alive. And it's basically a, worst case, 2% perf cost on modern GPUs.

First off, after trading in my 360 and using the money to buy a gaming PC, the only exclusive game I missed playing was the Forza games and specifically the Horizon games. These requirements scared me off at first since I went kinda budget on my PC with the intent on upgrading in the future. That said, I only have a GTX 950. But this dude's videos are extremely helpful for me to gauge what games are playable on my PC. Looks like you'll be able to play Horizon 3 just fine on the card you have. And it looks like I will be able to as well. Thanks for the tip that Apex and Horizon 3 have the same rec requirements specs.

Welp... I was pretty much firmly at the minimum requirements for this one so I have downloaded and tried out the 6 Apex game to gauge things. It runs pretty terribly. I'm sad. Going to have to skip this one until I upgrade my computer.

Still pretty confused as I really don't have a problem running any other games on at the least medium settings with maybe a few low settings mixed in but usually at least medium across the board. My PC is 4 years old but still... more powerful than the consoles yet can't run this? Kind of puzzling.

Looks like one less game to buy in the immediate, which is good for my wallet. Shame it looks like such a fun one. It is what it is. Not an expert on the technical aspects just felt like I'd be able to run it better but as soon as I saw the requirements I obviously had my concerns. Running the Battlefield 1 Beta recently and having it look quite damn good though *shrug*. That and NBA 2k17 for me for the rest of this year.

What really bugs me is when I see a not terribly graphics heavy game (often an indie-type game of sorts) that have reqs like this or higher. I just wonder where all that power is going, not that I know much about making games. Also reminds me of how much I need a new PC, lol.

God i need to update my 7950. I'm getting close to min specs

forza 6 apex runs pretty much like butter despite my fx 8350 so i'm confident.

horizon 3 @ 60fps *homer drool*

That's a strange CPU specification... Sandy Bridge-E... what?